


heart of the sea

by RyDyKG



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, How Do I Tag, Hybrid TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), IRL Fic, Identity Reveal, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Not Beta Read, Original Mythology, Protective Wilbur Soot, Siren Wilbur Soot, Sirens, Water, Wilbur Soot-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-22 04:06:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30032775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyDyKG/pseuds/RyDyKG
Summary: Here is the secret that he barely thinks about, a secret that he shoves deep and far down in himself:Wilbur Soot is a siren, and he’s not exactly proud of that fact.
Relationships: Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot, Wilbur Soot & Everyone, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 8
Kudos: 286





	heart of the sea

**Author's Note:**

> ooh look second Wilbur-centric fic. i don’t know why I’m writing so much of him but it’s pog
> 
> okay this isn’t meant to be good. i had an idea, ran with it, and now I’m here. recently I have noticed my word counts getting longer?? bc last year I probs would’ve ended this at like 1k so that’s. Thats development babyyyy
> 
> this is mainly me dumping my ideas so yeah

There is a secret Wilbur doesn’t admit. Not to his fans, not to his friends, not to his family, and certainly not to himself.

To admit it would be to acknowledge it, and Wilbur is perfectly happy not acknowledging it at all.

(There is a secret he has always known, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. It’s hard to not know it when he sees it everyday.)

He brushes a finger against his neck, feeling the bumps and slightly raised skin. He calls it bigger-than-normal pimples, maybe rashes. His family thinks it’s a genetic condition. His friends think it’s a weird but harmless bump. His fans think nothing of it; they don’t even know that it exists, anyways.

Wilbur thinks it’s a general nuisance in his life, and a pain in his ass. If he doesn’t have it, he would be normal. He wouldn’t be drawn towards the sea so much, or have so many problems that come with not being in contact with water for a long time, or just not feel like _himself_ in his own skin.

Here is the secret that he barely thinks about, a secret that he shoves deep and far down in himself:

Wilbur Soot is a siren, and he’s not exactly proud of that fact.

For as long as he’s known himself, he’s never met someone like him.

Well, that’s sort of a lie; he has met people with the same tastes of music as him. He has met people who look similar to him. He has met people who are doing the same job as him.

He just hasn’t met someone who’s the same species as him.

Logically, his… uniqueness should’ve been inherited from someone. Maybe his mother, or his father. Maybe even a distant ancestor.

But no. He’s scoured through all of the books on his family that they have — because his family was apparently a pretty well-known and rich one, though nowadays they aren’t — and not a single one of them holds any mention of any weirdness or abilities or- just _something._

So from a young age, Wilbur learns everything by himself. He learns just how long he can hold his breath underwater, learns how deep he can swim into the sea, learns how to move around while in a tail, and how to deal with the pain that comes with his legs reattaching and detaching from each other over and over again. He learns how to control the waves around him after a near-accident when he was nearly found out.

His knowledge isn’t perfect. He’s pretty sure there’s a lot more that he hasn’t discovered yet. He’s not quite sure about the full extent of his powers, either.

But considering the fact that he really doesn’t want to acknowledge his inhumanity at all, and the fact that he has no one else to turn to about this, he’d say he’s doing a pretty damn good job.

The ocean is speaking to him.

It’s during the day when he’s met with Tommy, Phil, Fundy and Niki, and when he’s walking near the beach with Tommy, that he hears their words. He nearly trips over his feet when he hears it, looking around wildly, and pretends he thought he heard a comment about himself when Tommy asks why he’s acting so strangely.

 _Little siren,_ the water whispers, when he gets closer to it during his walk. _The water will keep you safe._

 _No the fuck it won’t,_ Wilbur thinks, and he ignores all other words the ocean speaks. He focuses on Tommy’s loud ramblings instead, and doesn’t look at the ocean for the rest of the walk.

Later that night, after Tommy has gone back home, he returns. He doesn’t want to come back, but he needs answers. The ocean has had multiple opportunities throughout his 20+ years of life, and it — she, he, they? — decides to start talking to him now?

“What do you want from me?” he asks. He doesn’t dip his feet into the sea, doesn’t dare to get close in fear of transforming. “Why- I- why now, of all times?”

 _Magic_ , it sings, in a sort of annoyingly playful way. Wilbur decides that he really hates the ocean.

“That is the worst answer you could’ve given me,” Wilbur tells it. The ocean doesn’t reply. Wilbur looks around, thankful that no one’s around to see him acting weirdly by seemingly talking to nothing. At least, he’s pretty damn sure no one else can hear the ocean; no one else had reacted back then.

He feels out of place, though whether it’s because he’s not in the ocean, standing alone, or for another reason entirely, he’s not sure. 

“I’m going back now,” he says. “Back home. And _hopefully_ , I won’t come back anytime soon, so I’d _appreciate_ it if you’d stop bothering me.”

_To where? Your home is here?_

“I can’t live in the ocean,” Wilbur says flatly.

 _You are the ocean, and you are the waves_ , the water sings. _Won’t you join us in your rightful place?_

“Fuck off!” he snarls, eyes narrowing. “I don’t need to join you.”

_Water is kind, and water is safe. Why won’t you join us here today?_

Wilbur storms away from the beach. He ignores the mournful noises that he hears through the breeze.

Wilbur hates how homely he feels in the water. He hates how it removes some of his inhibitions, the ones that stop him from doing stupid things like sing out to fishermen whenever he’s swam out into deeper and further oceans and catch and eat fish with sharper canines and speed.

He hates how he _enjoys_ it.

It’s relaxing, actually, when he’s not losing control over his own body and singing aloud to anyone nearby, to get them into the water and all that. The waves are surprisingly comforting. It’s so easy to lose himself, to just relax under the soothing pressure of the sea, to just drift with the waves as he swims with his tail.

But like all things, it has to end eventually.

 _Stay,_ the water begs, though he has no idea why. _Stay with us, little siren. Stay with us, human’s temptation._

“I won’t stay,” Wilbur snaps, and he leaves the ocean with his legs in pain and his ears listening to soft sounds of mourning.

“There’s an urban legend rising up where I live, actually,” Tubbo comments offhandedly, just a few minutes into their conversation after his stream has ended. “It’s about a siren.”

As usual, whenever the word ‘siren’ comes up, Wilbur tenses up. The other people in the voice call don’t have the same hesitations as he does, because they immediately start to ask questions.

“I don’t know much about it, to be honest,” Tubbo laughs sheepishly. “All I know is that it’s called the Fisherman’s Temptation. There’s been fishermen coming back from sea and claiming up and down that they’ve seen a male siren sing so beautifully that they almost couldn’t resist. They say that he has a tail made out of… sapphires? I think? Or diamonds, the tale varies. He’s usually spotted at night, though.”

“That’s a stupid name,” Wilbur can’t help but say, and Tubbo snorts.

“Yeah, I kinda agree,” he admits. “I haven’t actually seen it personally, but people say they’ve got photos of him. All blurry, though. Most people in my area are dismissing it as another rumour, or some weird shark that fishermen might’ve seen.”

The conversation switches to another topic soon after, but Tubbo’s words still repeat in his head, even after Wilbur quits the call, and tries desperately to get it out of his head.

‘Fisherman’s Temptation’. What a stupid name.

 _Fuck,_ he’s never hated being weird more than this moment.

**Wilbur should sing more,** a comment on his ‘Internet Has Ruined Me’ video says. **He hasn’t been singing a lot in his streams, has he?**

It’s not the only one. He gets multiple comments a day, begging him to make more songs, begging him to sing. It’s not just on YouTube either; there’s quite a lot of people chanting at him to sing whatever song they want him to sing.

They want him to be Wilbur Soot, musician extraordinaire.

But that Wilbur Soot has been gone for a long time, ever since the ocean started speaking to him, and ever since his sung words turned into a weapon to be used, something to charm and ensnare and capture and _kill-_

So no. Wilbur doesn’t sing.

“You alright, mate?” Phil asks him one day, when it’s just Wilbur and him on a voice call together. “You haven’t done any singing in a while.”

He knows. He’s seen the joking counter that a few Twitter accounts have been doing. It’s been a month since he’s sung, apparently.

“I’m fine, Phil,” Wilbur rolls his eyes fondly. “Just- I’ve just got a little burnout, y’know? I’ll be fine eventually.”

“If you say so,” Phil seems reluctant to let the matter go, but he does, and Wilbur’s grateful to him for it.

In the end, it all comes to a head the second time Tommy visits him.

Wilbur has been doing his best to keep his secret, well, a secret. It’s easier this time; he can tune out the calls of the ocean and focus instead on Tommy’s loud chatter.

Tommy’s parents had allowed him to stay with him over the weekend, while they went on a business trip. After several promises and precautions, Tommy had shown up in front of his apartment with a bright smile, a luggage for two days, and his vlog gun.

Things had been going so _well_. And then that bastard just _had_ to show up.

Wilbur has been talking with Tommy for over fifteen minutes as they stand at the docks. The ocean is surprisingly quiet, which lets Wilbur relax for the first time in a while.

“Nice night, innit?” Tommy mocks, and Wilbur chuckles.

The nice moment is ruined when a motorcycle rears by, and stops just behind them. Wilbur turns around just as the man — the _bastard_ — gets out and takes out a gun.

“You!” the bastard hisses. “You freakshows!”

 _What the fuck,_ Wilbur thinks, because of all the things he had expecting to face today, a robbery is not one of them.

A loud cry snaps him out of his thoughts, and Wilbur freezes as Tommy struggles in his captor’s grip. He has no idea what had happened, how could he have been so stupid to just freeze and not pay attention-

The bastard tugs Tommy closer, and puts an arm around his neck, with another hand holding out a gun. “Either you leave this boy to me,” he says slowly. “Or I’ll kill both of you right this instant.”

There is anger on Tommy’s face, and Wilbur isn’t exactly sure what he’s going to do, but it might get him into more trouble and danger, so he rushes forwards and pushes the bastard away with a surprising amount of strength, snarling.

The bastard pushes him into the water, but the jokes are on _him_ , because Wilbur feels his legs meshing together painfully, but all pain is ignored when Tommy is _right there_ , probably about to get hurt, and-

Wilbur swims upwards, and feels the tides brimming with energy and excitement and determination and-

“What the fuck?!” the bastard curses, and Wilbur cackles as the waves pull him under, leaving Tommy to stand at the docks.

“Revenge is a dish best served cold,” he snarls. The bastard probably sees his tail, and screeches.

“Get away from me, you freak!” the bastard spits, his expression a mixture of horror and fear, as he tries to kick his legs away. “You old son of a bitch! You fucking freak of nature!”

“I am old,” Wilbur agrees amusedly. “But you know what they say?”

 _Drown him,_ his instincts sing. _Sing him a song so beautiful that he will not escape, and drag him under and down and away from your brother._

“The ocean is old as fuck.”

They tell stories about beautiful, graceful, dangerous sirens. They say that sirens sing about someone’s biggest desires, lure them into the deep sea to eat and catch and _drown_. They call it a sailor’s punishment, a mermaid’s corruption, a human’s death wish. They say that sirens have the most beautiful and enchanting voices, melodiously haunting and sweet.

They don’t talk much — if at all — about the sirens who are different. They do not speak of the sirens who swim through the waves easier and quicker than their other brethren, as if the ocean is _made_ for them, twisting and shaping itself to their desires. They don’t talk about the sirens who call the storms and the waves and the streams _home._

Back then, he found it a curse. Now? He finds it a blessing.

Wilbur grins a shark-like, ferocious grin. He bares his teeth, and grins even wider at the bastard’s recoil.

“It’ll still drown your fucking ass with vigour.”

He falls back, and lets the waves do their job.

The bastard does not die.

Wilbur is not cruel, and he still has his morals. Killing is most definitely on his ‘no-no’ list. Instead, he washes him away, onto a place far away, where the bastard will probably dismiss the whole encounter as a hallucination.

Then, he shifts his focus to Tommy. Tommy, who is trembling, wide-eyed and gaping, and leaning on his hands. Tommy, who has just found out about the one secret he has tried to keep to himself for so long.

Tommy, whose face splits into a wide, if shaky, grin, and cheers.

“That was so cool!” he crows out to the empty, cool air of Brighton’s boatyard. “Wilbur, what the fuck?”

He says the last few words in an enthusiastic and energetic way that leaves Wilbur surprised.

He swims closer, until his arms are resting on planks of wood, while his tail swishes back and forth in the water anxiously.

“You’re not,” Wilbur bites his lip, and rethinks his words. “You’re not, like, surprised or scared or anything?”

Tommy scoffs. “Wilbur, you literally just saved my life. I’ve known you for like, what, a year or two? I’d be a fool to be scared.”

“A year or two isn’t a long period of time.”

“So? It’s long enough.”

Wilbur doesn’t know whether he wants to laugh or cry at Tommy’s words. He’d thought the younger would’ve been freaking out more by now.

“Your tail looks fuckin’ cool, by the way,” Tommy says.

Wilbur shrugs. “I guess.”

His tail isn’t anything special. Well, it technically is, because it’s a literal fish tail, but it’s just a tail coloured in many different blues. They gleam in the sunlight, as he had discovered one day, but other than that, it’s nothing unusual. He thinks so, at least.

Wilbur takes a deep breath in. “Look, Tommy, I know this is probably very weird for you, but _please_ don’t tell anyone else, I don’t- I know this is pretty damn weird, but-”

“Are you kidding me?” Tommy tosses his head back and laughs. “Wilbur, if I knew you were like me, I would’ve revealed myself a long time ago!”

A beat. “What?”

Tommy grins, bright-eyed, even as Wilbur gapes at his words. “Yeah! Honestly, I thought you weren’t- that you were just a human, but I’m so glad you’re not, I’ve never met anyone else who’s like me! Well, except for that one guy in sixth grade, but he was a right bastard, so he doesn’t really count-”

“Slow down, slow down,” Wilbur interrupts, because what the fuck? “What did you say?”

Tommy blinks at him. “I- I said that if I’d known you were like me, I would’ve revealed myself a long time ago…?”

“‘Like you’?” Wilbur echoes. “Wait a fucking second, you’re a- you’re a goddamn siren too?!”

“What? No?!” Tommy exclaims back. “I’m not a sea creature, I have wings! Look!”

Wings burst out from his back after he says those words. They’re kind of transparent, but they gleam gold and brown under the slight moonlight. They spread out like the wings of a- like some fast-flying bird. 

Wilbur doesn’t stop himself from gaping at them. They’re not ugly — far from it, actually, they’re very aesthetically pleasing — but it’s not their beauty that throws him off either.

No, it’s the fact that Tommy is _just like him_. Something- someone _different._

“There’s more of people like-” Wilbur breathes in sharply, even as Tommy eyes him curiously, still wearing a bright smile. “Fucking hell, there’s more of _different_ people? I’m not just- I’m not a freak of nature?”

Tommy’s smile falters. “I- no- what? Of course there’s more of me- you- _us_.”

“Well that would’ve been bloody useful to know,” Wilbur snarks, pushing himself out of the water when he hears some noise. The water whispers to him to get out, so he does. “Especially when I was fucking growing up.”

“You didn’t know?” Tommy frowns, helping him up. Wilbur hisses in pain as his fin starts to turn back into legs. “Didn’t you ask around?”

“Number one, none of my family members are like me,” he doesn’t stop the bitterness from creeping into his tone, and Tommy winces. “Number two, I did not want to run the risk of being experimented on, thank you very much.”

“That’s fair,” Tommy sighs, as Wilbur stands up. His wings fluff up in anxiousness — at least, what he presumes is anxiousness. He grabs onto Wilbur’s arm, and begins dragging him somewhere, probably to his apartment. “But- oh fuck, that means you don’t know- damn. Oh my god, I have to-”

“Yes, you have so much to tell me,” Wilbur cuts him off, letting himself be dragged along. “Preferably starting from just _what_ you are.”

“I’m a second-generation mix of a fae and a sphinx,” he explains, later on, when they’ve returned to Wilbur’s house. “Which doesn’t give me much in terms of like, magic and shit, but it does give me a couple of cool illusion powers, and it gives me cool wings too!”

To emphasise his statement, he spins around, and Wilbur gets a closer and brighter view of the wings protruding from his back.

“Wait, so you can lie?” he asks. “As a fae?”

“Well, yeah,” Tommy shrugs. “That’s how genetics work with us creatures. I think. ‘S like, you win some and you lose some. I didn’t get some cool powers but I did get immunity to things that the non-mixed people don’t get.”

“Right,” it’s still a struggle for him to understand that there are actually people out there who have gone through roughly the same things as him. “And- and there’s a whole community?”

“There’s not much of us, actually,” Tommy admits. “I don’t- I’m not sure of the specific stuff, because my parents really don’t want to tell me, but people like us have sort of dwindled. Mainly because our kind gets suppressed and stuff if we don’t spend time around others of our kind, and we eventually turn fully human. No, I don’t know how it works, you’ll probably have to ask my parents for that. Someone in your past must’ve been a creature, if you’re still a siren up ‘til now.”

Wilbur frowns. “That- that is very much not how genetics work. People can’t just _revert_.”

“Yeah, well, they do,” Tommy replies. “I don’t know shit about this, but you can ask my parents if you’d like. I’m pretty sure they don’t tell me because I’m ‘too young’ or some shit.”

A child joke lies on Wilbur’s tongue. He doesn’t say it out loud.

“Right,” he says instead. “Okay. I’ll- I’ll go ask your parents whenever they return.”

“You alright, Wilbur?” Tommy frowns up at him. “Lookin’ a little pale there.”

“I’m fine,” he sighs. “Just- I’m just trying to wrap my head around all of this, yeah? Y’know, I taught myself everything I know. Everything I know how to do, I learned myself. If I’d known that- that there were more people out there like me, I could’ve…”

Well, he doesn’t know what he could’ve done. Tommy winces.

“Well, you’ve got me now!” Tommy says, trying to cheer him up. “A-and my parents! And whoever they know! It’s alright, big man, we can help you.”

Wilbur leans his head back, and thinks about everything he’d faced when he was younger.

Maybe if something had changed…

“Yeah,” he breathes out. “I know now.”

“Good,” Tommy’s smile doesn’t fix everything, but it does make Wilbur relax. And right now, in the middle of the night, with his clothes still slightly drenched and with the knowledge that he had almost killed a man, it’s enough.

There is a secret Wilbur doesn’t admit. Not to his fans, not to most of his friends, not to his family-

-but it’s one that he’s admitted to himself.

It’s still rough, sometimes. He still can’t exactly stay in the sea for far too long, or swim too far away, lest he start up the rumours of the ‘Fisherman’s Temptation’ yet again. But Tommy’s parents have been a blessing to him, and they’ve given him books on his species, books that he’s still going through.

Tommy’s a help, too. He tells him all about the myths and the stories that he remembers, and offers to help him get up to date and get a connection into the deeper career world, though Wilbur did decline the offer.

Before, he used to be ashamed of relying on someone younger than him so much. Now, he feels nothing but pride for Tommy.

The water has stopped its incessant whispering. Now, they only talk to him sometimes, on the nights when he’s alone and wanting someone to speak to. 

Wilbur swims through the waves, grinning at the fishes that follow his route curiously. He hums a little song to himself, diving deep down before slowly swimming upwards, and eventually surfacing to glance at the moon to see if he had to go back to his house or not.

The moonlight casts a gleam over the water, and Wilbur’s tail gleams under its light. He doesn’t find it as annoying as he used to before.

One day, he thinks he might actually fully accept himself. It’s going to be a slow process, but, well, one day.

**Author's Note:**

> bob ross fic coming soon i promise  
> if you want you can write a fic from this idea or somethinh idk as long asu give credit n shit


End file.
